Semiconductor wafer manufacturing utilizes very sophisticated wafer processing procedures and complicated manufacturing systems. In efforts to reduce the size of the semiconductor package, manufacturers have reduced component sizes including the thickness of the wafer, itself. For example, wafer thinning can be performed by a grinding method to achieve a wafer thickness on the order of 100 microns and less. These thin wafers, though, are very fragile and brittle. Of particular concern are thinned wafers with through silicon vias (TSV), which can be about 25% as strong as non TSV wafers. For example, as the fracture strength varies with the square of wafer thickness, a force to break the thin wafers can be around 1N or less.
Shipping of thin wafers is thus a difficult challenge. Currently, for example, the wafers are placed into plastic containers for shipping. In known implementations, the wafers are manually placed into the containers with foam cushions on the bottom and on top and thin cleanroom paper dispersed between each wafer. Once placed into the containers, a top is placed onto the container. However using these containers and methods of insertion, the thinned wafers are subjected to an unacceptably high risk of damage. For example, when the thin wafers are flexed, whether during the packaging or shipping process, they become susceptible to micro-crack generation, which ultimately leads to wafer breakage.
Also, existing methods for loading and unloading thin, fragile wafers into and out of shipping containers is prone to causing wafer breakage. For example, dicing vendors prefer to manually remove thin, fragile wafers instead of extracting them from shipping containers with vacuum wands. However, wafers easily break if they contact the wall of the shipping container while they are being placed into and/or removed from the shipping container. This problem will only grow worse as the industry trends to even thinner wafers.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.